Two 2010 homicides remain unsolved for Clackamas County sheriff's deputies, cases with scanty evidence, few clues and lots of frustrating dead ends.

"These are the cases that are the toughest," said Detective Jim Strovink, Clackamas County sheriff's spokesman. "They're hard on the victims' families and they're hard on the investigators, too."

In April, deputies investigating a savage attack involving multiple victims east of Milwaukie encountered witnesses with sketchy, often contradictory accounts.

That was much the same situation in July, when Wilsonville police investigated a fatal bar brawl.

And investigators still can't say what killed Dawneida Lee Funk, a 40-year-old Molalla woman found dead in May in an Oak Grove motel. The cause of her death remains undetermined, and the case isn't officially classified as a homicide.

"It's just an open investigation," Strovink said.

Clackamas County homicide victims in 2010 also included a 3-year-old killed by abuse and starvation and a 73-year-old man whose wife has been charged with murder.

Jan. 9: Alexis Marie "Lexi"Pounder, 3, was found dead of blunt-force trauma and acute starvation in her home south of Sandy. Her father's fiancee, Michelle Nicole Smith, 25, pleaded guilty to aggravated murder and will serve a minimum of 30 years in prison. In return for avoiding the death sentence, Smith agreed to testify against co-defendant Donald Lee Cockrell, 28, who was Smith's live-in boyfriend. A date for Cockrell's aggravated murder trial will be set Jan. 26. Meanwhile, he is being held without bail in the Clackamas County Jail.

April 12: William Jerome "Billy" Gaul, 48, who previously lived in Portland and east Clackamas County, was shot during a confrontation in the 6800 block of Southeast Lamphier Street, east of Milwaukie. Gaul and two other men were working on a pickup truck in a driveway when several assailants rushed up. The assailants shot two of the men, stabbed a third and fled. Gaul died of his injuries the next day. No suspects have been arrested or publicly identified.

July 23: Richard Meisner Schreiner, 73, died of a gunshot wound to the chest at his home in the 8800 block of Shadow Brook Court, east of Johnson City. Firefighters initially responded to a report of a man suffering medical distress but arrived to find Schreiner had been shot dead. The firefighters alerted police, who after a four-day investigation arrested Schreiner's wife, Carol Jean Schreiner, 70, and charged her with murder. Her trial is set for May 3. Meanwhile, she is being held without bail in the Clackamas County Jail. July 24: Lewis Allen Wilson, 50, was found lying in the parking lot of Boone's Junction Pizza and Pub, 29720 S.W. Boones Ferry Road, Wilsonville. Paramedics used a defibrillator but could not revive Wilson, who was pronounced dead at the scene. An autopsy indicated Wilson died of blunt-force trauma after a blow to the head. Wilsonville police said a bar fight apparently spun out of control, but they have not arrested or publicly identified any suspects. Officer-involved deaths

May 19: Andrew Michael Meade, 23, was shot by Clackamas County sheriff's deputies in a stairwell at the Monterey Springs Apartments, west of Happy Valley, after advancing on them with a knife and ignoring repeated warnings to stop. Deputies were called to the apartments to investigate a report that Meade had stabbed his wife at their apartment. A Clackamas County grand jury investigating the shooting declined to bring charges against Deputies Jason Nall and Travis Hill.

July 8: Phyllis A. Owens, 87, died after Clackamas County sheriff's Deputies Steve Shelly and Alan Alderman shot her with a stun gun at the Big Valley Woods Mobile Home Park, 32700 S.E. Leewood Lane, Boring. Deputies were called by the park manager, who said Owens was waving a handgun and had threatened to shoot him. Investigators later determined Owens was brandishing a realistic-looking pellet gun. An autopsy showed that the stun gun's 50,000-volt jolt interfered with Owens' implanted pacemaker. Clackamas County prosecutors declined to take the shooting to a grand jury, saying Owens' pellet gun was "indistinguishable" from an actual firearm at a distance and that they could not have known Owens had a pacemaker.

Michelle Nicole Smith was the fiancee of Donald Lee Cockrell, whose daughter, Alexis Marie "Lexi" Pounder, they have been charged with killing. An earlier version of this article misstated Smith's relationship to Lexi.